There is a lot of talk about "western" values. Do you know of any non-western values?

Question

There is a lot of talk about "western" values. Do you know of any non-western values?

Answer 1

yes, the values of  Asian and Islamic countries.

E.g. West values individual achievement, Japanese and Chinese - teamplay. West values negotiating over differences, Islam - well, you know ...

Answer 2

The problem here is the question. It is far too simplistic.

First, how does one define "the West"? What are its "boundaries"? If one were to assume, as many people do, that "the West" means Europe and countries of European descent/influence (like the U.S., Australia, Canada, etc.), isn't it true that there is an incredible diversity of values between these countries? Are the French the same as the Irish? Are the Canadians the same as the Russians? Are the English the same as Germans? I think all of these people would beg to differ.

Taking it a step further, we need to recognize that "values" even within a single country like the United States are rather diverse too! In the case of the U.S., I don't think it is very useful to lump 300 million people together into some singular "value system". In fact, the U.S. seems to be undergoing a kind of crisis of values at the moment (red-state/blue-state "culture wars", etc.). Do red-state conservatives have the same values as blue-states liberals? Hardly.

If we were to rephrase the question like this: "Do other people in other cultures have different value-systems than I do?", you can be sure that the answer is YES. Some of the other folks here have provided some great examples of how this is so. But even this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I would suggest checking out an introductory anthropology textbook from your local library (I would suggest an easy-to-read intro book like "Conformity and Conlfict") to see just how amazingly diverse human cultures and values are.

Answer 3

Respect for the elderly, their wisdom, accumulated over many years, and their huge contribution to present day society.

Answer 4

The only worthwhile values of today are how much you have stashed away, nothing else matters

Answer 5

Being modest. Must say no when someone gives you something unless you HAVE to our they're really close to you.

Answer 6

not being a f****s.

"Western values" usually implies "Christian values".

Answer 7

"The group is more important than the individual"

Answer 8

No, I do not. I believe that western value is a mixture of many cultures that try to make up one, but the truth is there are too many because the diversity in the western region.

Answer 9

?  Ever hear of Buddhism or Hinduism?  Only THE LARGEST POPULATION ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET!

Historically, metaphysics in the Western (or Western and Middle Eastern) world has tended to maintain a tension between religion and secularism - between monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bahai'ism on the one hand, and philosophical and humanistic materialism and scientism in the modern world on the other.  The philosophical and metaphysical distinction between dualism and materialism that has so much shaped Western thinking goes back to the ancient Greeks, Pythagoreanism and Platonism representing the dualist position, Atomism and Epicureanism the Materialistic, and Aristotleanism and Stoicism as a sort of holistic or quasi-holistic "third way" between the two.  To some extent this is also the case in China as well, although not to so great an extreme.

In India however, the tension has tended to be between Monism and Dualistic Theism.  That is, between full-fledged Monistic mysticism in which God or Godhead is understood as non-different from the Self (e.g. Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism), and dualistic mysticism and exoteric religionism in which God is seen - as in the monotheistic religions of the West and Middle East - as eternally separate from the self and matter.  In this intellectual, cultural, and spiritual environment, Materialism and Atheism has played a very small part, and many atheistic philosophies - e.g. Buddhism and Jainism - are also profoundly mystical.